I left school at 9pm. The smell of the burning of joss sticks and white paper was unmistakable. When I was young, I had always enjoyed the 7th month. My dad had always brought me along for the dinner cum bidding. It was at these dinners where I was introduced at a young age to appreciate XO. Uncle at my table will generously bid 200sgd for a bottle of XO and share it with everyone at the table. I liked him instantly, cos he did not discriminate against age. Everyone, regardless of age, got a cup full. I was 8.
When I reached the void deck of my block, I saw my neighbor. She was still poly when I left Singapore 2 years ago. Still pretty. Now, she looked different and she dressed different. Clad in a short tight denim skirt with a cigarette dangling from her fingers, she looked like as if she had already seen more of life than me. How time can change somebody. She casually dropped the half burnt cigarette butt onto the concrete pavement. My misplaced morality has always given good looking people a larger gray area to flirt with before I decide to condemn their actions.
The cigarette was put out within moments of being dropped on the floor. A two wheeler rolled over it at high speed. Woah! I took my eyes off the svelte back of my neighbor and looked at what zipped past me. I had unknowingly walked into my neighborhood's mini version of Tour de BtMerah. 10year old kids were racing around the badminton courts with dustbins as checkpoints. The same dustbins they used as goal posts during soccer. "See how I drift around the corner!", shouted the Indian boy. He accelerated towards the dustbin, turned his bike, squeezed the back brakes and drifted. I didn't know you can do that with bikes! His tires probably have to lose their threading in order to do that.
I remembered how I used to be like them. action bedeh.
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